Review of Menzoberranzan: City of Intrigue by Wizards of the Coast

I would like to have had the crunch for 4E included, think I will pass. They're only doing no crunch because of 5E.

 

[Evenglare]

I'm not saying edition books are neutral. I'm saying it's BS that wizards only puts them out when it's convenient for them to start pushing their new system. If they want edition neutral books, MAKE A FREAKING ENTIRE LINE OF THEM. I don't see how you can possibly argue FOR wizards when they are completely giving the middle finger to their 4th edition fans in a very blatant way. Don't like the 4th edition material? Don't use it. How can anything MORE to the book, be bad when you can just ignore it? I do it all the time with other system's books.

 

[Dice4Hire]

I'm not saying edition books are neutral. I'm saying it's BS that wizards only puts them out when it's convenient for them to start pushing their new system. If they want edition neutral books, MAKE A FREAKING ENTIRE LINE OF THEM. I don't see how you can possibly argue FOR wizards when they are completely giving the middle finger to their 4th edition fans in a very blatant way. Don't like the 4th edition material? Don't use it. How can anything MORE to the book, be bad when you can just ignore it? I do it all the time with other system's books.

You know, this could be the first in a line of system neutral books. The Greenwood book is coming out soon, though to be fair, I have not heard of any other WOTC books coming out at all.


WOTC is reaching out to all their supporters, current (4E) and other, with this book and the FR one to come out soon.

I cannot find any fault in that

4E is still being supported online with Dragon and Dungeon.

 

[Kralin Thornberry]

There is no way I would have bought this book if it was full of 4e crunch. The Forgotten Realms needs to take a systems neutral stance at this point. I think it a wise decision.

Though it is systems neutral it still had information for the plague realms time period. It had relevant sections to each time period, and described what was happening in Menzo, and with the drow houses for each of them where relevant.

The lack of 4e crunch is a strength of this book, and shows a lot of promise for the sundering and 5e Forgotten Realms.

And I respect your opinion. Honestly, I haven't purchased the book, but I would still have wanted the crunch for 4E that was provided for 2nd Edition and 3rd Edition.

 

[Rune]

I'm saying it's BS that wizards only puts them out when it's convenient for them to start pushing their new system. If they want edition neutral books, MAKE A FREAKING ENTIRE LINE OF THEM.

First of all, both the 4e Eberron and the 3e Kingdoms of Kalamar campaign books previously mentioned were released fairly early on for their respective editions.

Second, I would love to see an entire evergreen line of system-neutral products, but I doubt that WotC has the resources to do that while also supporting their current edition with crunch. That said, it makes much more sense to have the crunch-heavy books among the earliest releases during an edition cycle and release rules-light material primarily later, after there has been a glut of crunch.

I don't see how you can possibly argue FOR wizards when they are completely giving the middle finger to their 4th edition fans in a very blatant way. Don't like the 4th edition material? Don't use it. How can anything MORE to the book, be bad when you can just ignore it? I do it all the time with other system's books.

You seem to be very angry.

I consider myself a fan of 4th edition (although not exclusively), and yet I just don't feel that way. At this point, the last thing I need is more feats, powers, races, paragon paths, or epic destinies. And, while I would like to see an essentials-style design for the warlord and monk, I'll live without them (besides, my brother & I have already designed a monk defender that is more awesome than any monk WotC has ever designed).

4e already has more crunch than is healthy for it. I could ignore crunch in these products, but if they're releasing material I can incorporate into my game, I'd rather they fill the pages with stuff whose utility transcends the system I've chosen to play for any given campaign.

 

[coach]

While true, this is a blatant disregard of 4th edition, in prep for 5th edition. If they would like edition less books then they need to make a LINE of them, not just when it's convenient because their efforts are focused on the next edition. I guaranteeing you we won't see any edition less books when 5th edition comes out. May I point out to you the edition less eberron book (adventurer's handbook or whatever it was called) Yeah...

Don't give me that "you can use it for whatever you want". I'd be all for this if it wasnt basically a big slap in the face to 4th edition consumers. I understand why they did it business wise, but what a way to treat your 4th edition customers. There's NO reason that all of this material couldn't have been supplemented with 4th edition crunch, they just do not want to support the system any more ... clearly.

you mean all six of you left?

all kidding aside it's a business decision clearly

there never were many 4th edition fans after the newness wore off

and a criminally low number of 4E FR products/fans

and now there are drastically less

they want to sell books and know that any sniff of 4E in this book will drive away tens of thousands of dollars for a lame duck (and a severely beaten lame duck at that) edition

system neutral it has a chance

 

[Matt James]

I'm not impartial at all (contributed a little to the book, my older brother was the lead designer, and I designed the drow treachery cards) but I think this book will be of value to anyone that wants to revisit Menzoberranzan.

After all is said and done, WotC is trying to earn money. If 4e crunch books are not earning money in a meaningful way (sustainability, branding, etc...) they need to adapt and move on. I actively design for WotC and even I was getting fatigued by the sheer amount of feats, powers, and abilities in the game. If you're interested in that aspect of the game, Dragon magazine still provides it.

 

[Blackwarder]

I'm not impartial at all (contributed a little to the book, my older brother was the lead designer, and I designed the drow treachery cards) but I think this book will be of value to anyone that wants to revisit Menzoberranzan.

After all is said and done, WotC is trying to earn money. If 4e crunch books are not earning money in a meaningful way (sustainability, branding, etc...) they need to adapt and move on. I actively design for WotC and even I was getting fatigued by the sheer amount of feats, powers, and abilities in the game. If you're interested in that aspect of the game, Dragon magazine still provides it.

Hi Matt!

I totally agree, the magazines should hold most of the crunch and the books should be setting neutral.

Any chance of you telling us if the book going to be out in digital form in the near future? I stoped buying printed books five years ago and I'm interested in buying this one.

Warder

 

[Matt James]

Hi Matt!

I totally agree, the magazines should hold most of the crunch and the books should be setting neutral.

Any chance of you telling us if the book going to be out in digital form in the near future? I stoped buying printed books five years ago and I'm interested in buying this one.

Warder

I have no clue. That's a question for WotC's business unit.

 

[Mournblade94]

I'm not saying edition books are neutral. I'm saying it's BS that wizards only puts them out when it's convenient for them to start pushing their new system. If they want edition neutral books, MAKE A FREAKING ENTIRE LINE OF THEM. I don't see how you can possibly argue FOR wizards when they are completely giving the middle finger to their 4th edition fans in a very blatant way. Don't like the 4th edition material? Don't use it. How can anything MORE to the book, be bad when you can just ignore it? I do it all the time with other system's books.

It is better to have all parts of a book be useful rather than a portion. If there was 4e crunch, that is resource space and development energy not used for something more useful for my purposes.

 

[Evenglare]

I'm not against system neutral books, I LOVE them. My point is that once 5th edition comes around you will never see another system neutral book until they start gearing up for 6th edition. That's what infuriates me the most. If this book had come out and 5th edition was already release you bet your ass this would have been a 5th edition book.

 

[Blackwarder]

I'm not against system neutral books, I LOVE them. My point is that once 5th edition comes around you will never see another system neutral book until they start gearing up for 6th edition. That's what infuriates me the most. If this book had come out and 5th edition was already release you bet your ass this would have been a 5th edition book.

I wouldn't be that sure, granted it might happen but right now, with the why DnDNext is shaping up, they might have problems of writing a 5e system book considering all the modules. What I do believe we might see are books with rules modules in them, just like the Menzoberanzen book got the system to track your standing in the drop city.

Warder

 

[Sylrae]

The point of system neutral is so you can tailor it to your system of choice.

Personally I'm happy they're putting out a system neutral book. I have a bunch of the other setting books they released for various editions, and in 3e, and the other 4e setting books I've read, there's far too much crunch for the pagecount.

Its a setting book, not an options book. I want it to be almost entirely setting. That's why I didn't end up picking up Neverwinter.

The pagecount is atrociously short though, it should have been about 100 pages longer, and like 5$ more expensive. That, or it should have been like 8$ cheaper.

As someone who owns this, DotU, the 1990's Menzo boxed set, and 3e Underdark, I think its quite useful. It's a book I've been waiting for for a while.

1. It brings much of the info needed to do a quality drow game to one place.
2. It includes GM advice for running that sort of game.
3. It includes Player advice for playing that sort of game.
4. It gives history of Menzoberranzan outside the 2e timescale. (though annoyingly, virtually no info from 1372-1385DR - which is the time period I was most interested in)

If it had been filled with 4e crunch, I would not have bought it. It gets them sales outside the 4e crowd. Some people didn't find 4e to be the game they wanted to play.

Its a setting book. I wish my 3e setting books were this useful with 4e, or 5e. It's also not a player book, it's a GM book. Put the character options on DDI, in Dragon Magazine Articles. Its all you really need. Players will get access to the options through DDI, and the GM can buy the hardcover book.

I wish all settings were written like this, or "Return to the Road of Kings", or Kingdoms of Kalamar Campaign Guide.

They shouldn't only do this when switching editions though. They should do ALL the setting books this way. I'd buy more setting books. Maybe even just to read.

And I find the fact that it's written in "Align-Left" instead of "Left Justify" to be very odd for an RPG book, but that may be something WotC has been doing for a while that I just missed.

 

[S'mon]

All the other reviews of this book have been pretty negative, so I'm a bit unconvinced by the OP, although his love of WoTC is clear.

 

[Sylrae]

All the other reviews of this book have been pretty negative, so I'm a bit unconvinced by the OP, although his love of WoTC is clear.

I picked it up largely because of this review.

I think it is a very useful book for running a drow campaign, though it does have some overlap with both Drow of the Underdark 3e and Menzoberranzan 2e. It has fairly little overlap with Underdark 3e (and I haven't read the 4e underdark book).

If you know alot about drow and have read those other books, perhaps you could have gotten by without it, but it's likely that not everyone in your group has read these things, and there are a couple sections that would make an excellent primer for the players who are less familiar with the subject matter.

I think the book will be useful to me.

Could I have done without it? - It would have taken some more work to prep for the campaign and find the information I needed, but yes I could have.

However, I have & have read Drow of the Underdark 3e, Menzoberranzan 2e, Races of Faerun 3e, FRCS 3e, Grand History of the Realms, Cormanthyr Empire of the Elves, Players guide to Faerun 3e, Underdark 3e, City of the Spider Queen 3e, and Expedition to the Demonweb Pits 3e, and Dragon Magazine #298 in my RPG Book collection, and I have & have read War of the Spider Queen, Lady Penitent, Starlight & Shadows, and the Dark Elf Trilogy; as well as the Last Mythal series (which has a little bit of information on pre-descent drow worked in).

Realistically, all of my players have not read those ~5000+ pages of text.

I think I could do a decent 3.x/pathfinder based Menzoberranzan game, using nothing but Drow of the Underdark 3e and Menzoberranzan City of Intrigue. If I was doing it in 4e, I would probably use the 4e underdark book instead of DotU3e.